Newark schools need to be in local hands

Steve Hockstein/For the Star-LedgerShavar Jeffries, president of the Newark Public Schools Advisory Board, says the board believes the state takeover of city schools should be ended.

By Shavar Jeffries

For 15 years, the state has controlled Newark’s public schools. State control contradicts the most fundamental traditions motivating public education in this country, which emphasize local control of public schools.

The reason for this long tradition is simple: parents and local communities are best situated to appreciate the individual needs of children and to then tailor educational practices to meet those individual needs. For sure, this tradition operates alongside a growing state and federal role. But state and federal policies focus on defining educational outcomes and creating the basic rights of parents and children. Local communities retain primary authority over operational decisions about the best ways of achieving the outcomes defined in state and federal law.

State takeover of a school district is, therefore, an extreme intervention. Extraordinary remedies such as this one should be targeted and temporary, focused on the specific problems causing hardship and lasting only as long as absolutely necessary. Yet the state takeover of Newark’s schools is neither targeted nor temporary: The city is well into its 15th year of takeover, and the takeover is all-encompassing — essentially, all important decisions about education for Newark’s 40,000 schoolchildren are made by officials answerable to Trenton rather than the people of Newark.

Long-term takeover, moreover, is unnecessary, given the range of tools now available to the state to ensure districts provide quality services. County superintendents, for example, can reject superintendent and senior-administrator contracts, and can even veto a district’s budget. And the state Department of Education has broad powers over district operations, enabling the state to supersede local decisions that compromise school quality.

But perhaps the most significant shortcoming of state takeover is that it undermines the community support that makes sustainable school reform possible. Such reform must be rooted in community values and priorities. Yet state takeover, by its nature, attacks the integrity of the community’s voice, signaling that the community itself is the problem — so much so that the community’s perspective is merely advisory, to be respected or disregarded, or even ignored at the state’s whim. The very premise driving state takeover is, thus, an impediment to creating true, sustainable reform.

Fortunately, the state recognizes the imperatives of local values and has committed to partnering with Newark’s Mayor Cory Booker and its school board to improve the city’s schools. In announcing the $100 million gift from Mark Zuckerberg, Gov. Chris Christie emphasized the need for community engagement in pursuing the reforms our children deserve — themes repeated by the state’s leadership in the Department of Education.
In this backdrop, the Newark Public Schools Advisory Board adopted a self-report that finds the district is ready for the return to local control. Using the state’s Quality Single Accountability Continuum rubric, the board concluded the state takeover should come to an end. This self-report is the district’s own judgment, as the state has the final word on whether the district is ready for local control. But the first step is the board’s self-grade, and the district and the board have determined it is time for the return to home rule.
Fifteen years is a long time. A generation of Newark children, and their parents, know nothing but state takeover and its implications. Among the most corrosive is the message that the educational priorities of Newarkers are unimportant or, even worse, distorted. State takeover is ultimately on a collision course with itself. Consistent school improvement requires sustained parental support and engagement — yet state takeover dishonors both.

Fortunately, the state recognizes the need for education policy to be anchored in community values. Consistent with these values, the state has created a space in which the mayor, the elected school board and the broader Newark community can assert themselves more directly in the difficult work of school transformation. This is an important step toward the community empowerment that is ultimately a precondition for sustainable reform.

Yet this is not enough. We need to formally restore the authority of community values in the decision-making that drives school reform in Newark by ending takeover.
In the end, sustainable reform requires the people to impose change on government, not government to impose change on the people.

Shavar Jeffries is president of the Newark Public Schools Advisory Board.